Customer Reviews

The Approaching Storm (Star Wars)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Early in "Attack of the Clones" there is a line stating that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker will be available to help protect Padme Amidala because they have just returned from a mission on Ansion? This seems to be just a throwaway line in the movie, a tiny bit of detail to provide coloring to the scene. In the larger Star Wars Universe, we now wonder what it was that Obi-Wan and Anakin were doing. What was this mission? "The Approaching Storm" is the story of this mission to Ansion.

Ansion is a small, unimportant planet. At least, that is how things appear to be on the surface. In reality, Ansion is a very important planet. It is tied with treaties and agreements to numerous other nearby planets and this makes the threats that Ansion might secede from the Republic to be very serious. If Ansion secedes, an entire star system will be pulled with it. To stop this secession, Chancellor Palpatine requests the Jedi Council send a couple of Jedi to Ansion to find a diplomatic solution to quietly find a way to keep Ansion in the Republic. The Jedi Council sends Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luminara Unduli, and their Padawan apprentices Anakin Skywalker and Barriss Offee.

"The Approaching Storm" is somewhat of an adventure story. It is well paced, has humor, some action and some politics. What I liked best about this novel was the characters of Luminara and Barriss. We got to see some of their perspective, but I would love to see a novel focus on these two characters. They provide a perfect counter balance to Anakin and Obi-Wan, and give a greater look at the variety of personalities in the Jedi Order.

Alan Dean Foster was the ghostwriter of the first Star Wars novelization, and he wrote the first Extended Universe novel "Splinter of the Mind's Eye". His latest Star Wars novel had a great feel to it, and it was so fast paced that I was able to easily finish it in two days. This isn't high literature, but it was certainly entertaining.

-Joe Sherry

"the Approaching Storm" wasn't at all what I was expecting it to be when I first picked it up. Unlike most star wars books, it focuses more on character development and political intrigue then on space battles and lightsaber duels, and unlike most star wars books it is rather well written. The story itself revolves around two jedi knights, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luminara Unduli, and their respective padawans, Anakin Skywalker and Barriss Offee, as they set off to prevent a backward but strategically allied planet called Ansion from leaving the Republic. While the political talk and plotting was sort of hard to follow, I found myself swept away by Foster's descriptions of the planet and by the characters, especially Obi-Wan and Anakin. Obi-Wan is everything a powerful yet wise Jedi Knight should be, and Anakin is characterized as both willful and well-meaning, arrogant and vulnerable. Both characters are easily recognizable as the grown up versions of the characters that were introduced in Episode one, but at the same time both can be related to the characters they will become for "A New Hope." Luminara and Barriss were also well written and likable, although I can't help but think Foster could have come up with a better name then 'Barriss,' although that may not have been at his discretion.
My one problem with Foster's writing style is the formality of his language. I have a good vocabulary, but I still had to keep a dictionary handy while reading this book. The language is perfectly suited for description, and maybe the Jedi can get away with talking like that because they do seem like a formal crowd, but I just can't picture a hutt saying "Given that, I'm not surprised at the lack of enthusiasm on the part of your peurile hirelings." or Anakin responding to a statement with "Interminably." Even the two nut cases turned native guides talk like college proffesors. Beyond that and a couple of badly worded phrases, I was impressed with Foster's writing, which is almost never the case with a star wars novel.
I know from reading the reviews here at Amazon.com that a lot of people don't like the lack of action or the slow pace of this book. It's true that this book is not fast paced, and doesn't have any space battles, but it does have it's fair share of action, and the descriptions of the planet and the various animals and plants that the protagonists encounter on their journey more then make up for the lack of x-wings in this book. I would deffinately recommend it for older readers, but I think anyone belowe the age of fifteen might not enjoy it as much.

Two line summary: If you are not a hardcore Star Wars geek, you will probably not like this book. If you *ARE* a hardcore Star Wars geek, read this book for the plot and try to overlook the poor writing and sense that the book was rushed.

That having been said, I like most of the work of Alan Dean Foster. He is one of those authors that is not on my favorite list, but I know that when I pick up one of his books, more times than not, I will enjoy it. This book is not one of his better books simply because of poor writing.

The plot is a good plot. It not only fills in details of the politics of the Republic, it takes you into the hearts, minds and daily lives of two Jedi / Padawan pairs. Since one of these pairs is Obi Wan and Anakin, this becomes even more important to the plot of the next movie.

I want to add at this point that I have seen SW:Phantom Menace about 15-20 times and I have read this book. Here is what the book added to what I knew from Phantom Menace:
1) I now have a better understanding of general sense of the people of the Republic that the Senate is corrupt, the bureacracy is so great that it takes years to pass something of the greatest urgency and a lifetime to pass anything less important, and a majority of people feel there has to be a better way. Some planets are even organizing and considering leaving the Republic.
2) Senators live in luxury while most people in the galaxy struggle just to make ends meet in their day-to-day lives.

3) The taxing of trade routes that started just before Phantom Menace is still causing conflict between the people, merchants and the government.
4) While most people hate and distrust the Senate, most people love and trust the Jedi.
5) The book gave me interesting insight into the daily lives of both a Jedi and a Padawan.
6) Anakin has issues. Where most of his peers are calm and have only the smallest amount of turmoil within them, he has barely a surface of calm with a tempest of conflict beneath. Read the book for more.
7) Other Jedi, including Obi Wan, can sense that Anakin has these issues, but they also sense that there is nothing they can do to help until Anakin realizes he needs that help and asks for it. You get a sense of things leading to a single choice that will "kill" Anakin and give birth to Darth Vader.
8) And more...

What I did not like:
1) Phrases like "knocked on his butt" that you would never fit into a scene of the movie, but are used liberally throughout this book.
2) A sense that there are two stories going on here: one is the story of the 2 jedi and their padawans on a mission, and the other an excuse to drop hints about the "bad guys" of the next movie. This jedi story works well. The second does not.
3) After finishing the book, I was left with a general sense that this book was written for no other reason than to milk more money out of the dedicated fans (geeks like me). While a pessimistic argument could be put forward that *ALL* things Star Wars these days fall into this category, it is rare that I get that actual sense while reading/watching the piece.

When I read Alan Dean Foster would be writing a prequel novel to Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, I was thrilled. Not because I believe Alan Dean Foster to be an immortal, literary giant, but because I knew from his previous works I could depend on him as an author to make his characters more human(oid).

And Mr. Foster delivers. If you, like me, were disappointed with Greg Bear's Rogue Planet or James Luceno's Cloak of Deception (C'mon guys, I'm on a planet in a galaxy far, far away. I'd like to know how it looks/smells/feels like to the characters and I'd like more personal touches/emotional interactions.) you will read this book with delight.

You get to know Anakin as a highly gifted, cocksure though slightly rebellious Padawan living those difficult teen-age years (wishing he were anywhere other than where he is, preferably with hot-rod landspeeders) and to get a feel for those personality flaws that will eventually bring the entire galaxy to its knees, you find Obi-Wan stepping out of the shadow of Anakin's great talent and see what an incredible young Jedi Knight he is in his own right, trying very hard and succeeding at being a role model anyone would look up to (he has even learned his lesson about ... life-forms tagging along), you see their interaction with the female Jedi and her Padawan who they join on their mission and discover that their innermost thoughts are not all that lofty sometimes.

Their mission is to negotiate and mediate a dispute on the planet Ansion with nomads who are resisting the native city dweller expansion into their ancestral prairies. The city dwellers threaten to secede from the Republic should they not get what they want.

The Jedi have a good chance to succeed.

Though there are plenty of political machinations going on to make sure they don't.

Though their journey to meet the nomads through the outback of Ansion reminds a fan of Foster's Flinx novels of the grasslands of Alaspin, you get a wonderful travelogue of the planet.

Overall, incredibly refreshing and enjoyable and surprisingly bittersweet at times for Star Wars fans. For, as one of the native characters reflects near the end of the novel, that in spite of how powerful and talented the Jedi are, he feels sorry for them.

And knowing the near future of the Jedi in the Star Wars world, we do too.

"The Approaching Storm" is a great novel by Alan Dean Foster. Foster, it should be noted, is one of the biggest names in modern sci-fi as well as the ghostwriter of the original 'Star Wars' novelization. He also wrote the first ever Expanded Universe novel.

Still, if you're looking for action, this isn't the book for you. There is literally no fighting save for a battle at the very beginning and a battle at the very end. This book takes place directly before Episode II, and as such devotes itself to setting up the political background for the film. It also gives some much needed fleshing out to key prequel characters.

Obi-Wan and his apprentice, Anakin, are sent to the remote planet of Ansion to convince them to avoid secceding from the Republic. While the planet itself is insignificant, it is at the center of a huge and complex web of treaties and alliances.

They meet the city dwellers, who agree to remain within the Republic if the Jedi will settle their disagreements with the rural nomads. They set out of a journey into the barren, uncivilized deserts to seek out the nomads.

This book is set at a slower and relaxing pace than most Star Wars books. However, unlike 'Dark Journey' it still manages to move key character and plot points further. In regards to character development, I really enjoyed the entertainment for the first nomad group. It's not what you'd expect of a Jedi group, and it told something unique about each character. The highlight of the book for me.

If you don't mind the slower pace, and enjoy political thrillers of any sort, then be sure to find a copy of 'The Approaching Storm.'

It seems the books in the "Expanded Universe" are either hit or miss. The title of this review should insinuate where this book stands. Rather than engaging in conflict, it seems the Jedi and Padawans spend most of this book wandering the desert while engaging exotic creatures. If this excitement is not enough, the C-Span like political negotiations that are the climax should make readers label this book a "miss".

The Jedi are the peacekeepers of the universe and seem to spend many books in the "Expanded Universe" on strange and new planets brokering peace. The twist that may set this book apart is that the Jedi are attempting to keep the planet Ansion from leaving the empire to join the Separatists. With Soergg of the Hutts economically motivated to prevent the Jedi from accomplishing their mission, several devious plots are hatched. Of these plots, all seem to be different just for that sake of being different rather than actually succeeding.

If you found yourself annoyed by Jar Jar Binks, you are certain to be annoyed by the rodent-like character Tooqui. Just like Jar Jar, he speaks strangely and stupidly stumbles into saving the Jedi. In terms of sequence, this book is near Episode I. In terms of plot, it is also very close to Episode I. The three star average on this book should suggest that readers have had trouble liking this book. There is a good reason for most readers not liking it.

I have to admit right off the bat that I am not an avid reader of Star Wars books. I have read the novelizations of the movies simply to add to their enjoyment but that's about it. I just really have trouble seeing the legitimacy of them when George Lucas can just turn around and say they're irrelevant or never happened. I have picked up one here and there but I have almost always been disappointed. But this novel was different. It had the name of Alan Dean Foster on it, the author of the original two Star Wars books. So I started reading it with a little more affection and hope. I was disappointed.

The story concerns the world of Ansion, which, much like Naboo in Episode I, is split into two segregated sections. You have the cosmopolitan city dwellers and the more primitive nomads that roam the plains. The cities want to secede from the Republic to escape its endless red tape and regulations, which they see as inhibiting business. The nomads are more loyal and wish to stay in it. There is much suspicion between the two groups and in the chaos there just happens to be dark forces that wish to take advantage of it.

There is a conspiracy on Coruscant to exacerbate the situation on Ansion which would drive them to secession. The problem that confronts the Jedi and the Republic is that if Ansion secedes, their allies will follow, and then their allies and so on. The planet is the crossing point for numerous secret alliances which are interconnected in a giant spider web. Obi-Wan, Anakin, and another Jedi and Padawan are sent to negotiate between the two parties and convince them to stay in the Republic.

The problem that I noticed in Rogue Planet and other novels also crops up here. Namely, the fact that the author seems to hold himself back in characterization and plot to prevent himself from stepping on the toes of the movies. You can't get too surpising or unexpected with the characters. You cannot reveal too much about them because only George Lucas knows about them, and he just makes it up as he goes along. So the best thing is to get away as much as possible from the settings of the movies. No great battles, no character evolving experiences. It's more like "I'm going to write about this, but I'm not going to rock the boat."

Something that I did not like about the book was that lots of times the jedi seem incompetent. There is one part where the Character of Barris Offee, a padawan, is held captive just by tying here up and putting a bag over her head and she is blinded. Now excuse me if I'm wrong but Jedi are supposed to be able to operate without their senses. This comes up again and again. In another part when Anakin is confronted by wild beasts on the plains, his lightsaber is knocked from his hand. The Chosen One doesn't even have enough power over the force to call his lightsaber to his hand. I know even a padawan would be able to do this. Luke did it with no training.

I really liked the other Jedi accompanying Obi-Wan who goes by the name of Luminara. She is much more exotic and emotional than Obi-Wan. Maybe, more powerful. One of the failings of Episode I is that the Jedi WERE always under control. It was like making a Star Trek movie with all the lead characters as Vulcans, speaking in monotones and never making mistakes. Maybe it foreshadows the Jedi's demise, that they're so unworried. Lucas really needs to go about humanizing them. It almost makes me root for the Empire. Of course all this Repulic Senate Empire stuff is from Roman history. When a city state becomes too large, bureaucrats cannot control it. Something as egotistical as an Empire needs a dictator so the bloated city statenaturally becomes an Empire. Maybe the universe was better off with the Emperor. It was corrupt anyway. When Palpatine seized power it just made it official. A side note in the book is that all the Jedi at some point, question what they are doing and whether they are serving a function of a corrupt system. Noone seems to come up with an alternative to it. Or maybe Anakin has.

There are shadows of Anakin's turn to the darkside but he is relegated to be a supporting character. Most of the interesting aspects of the novel are in situations or characters which have no direct bearing on Attack of the Clones. While this is a diversionary prologue to that movie, I would hardly classify it as "exciting". For the most part it straddled the line of being just not boring enough to quit reading.

The Approaching Storm was written by Alan Dean Foster, the ghost author of the A New Hope novelization and writer of the first Star Wars spin-off novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye. This book takes place immediately before Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

This novel was released a few months before Attack of the Clones and billed as a "prologue" to the movie. I was so excited because I thought this book would set up the events of the movie while not revealing too much. Well, it definitely didn't reveal too much! Count Dooku is only mentioned once in the novel. Obi-Wan and Anakin's mission to the planet Ansion is mentioned in Episode II. The two other Jedi, which are the true main characters in the novel, are background characters in the movie. The novel mentions Anakin's issue with his mother. (And it was even intriguing to hear Anakin reflect on Watto as being the closest thing he had to a father figure before the Jedi came into his life.)

Overall, the portrayal of Obi-Wan and Anakin were fairly true to the movie, but we don't really get any insight to the character of Anakin that is not in the movie. And like Rogue Planet, this novel lacked the galactic feel that I love about Star Wars and this time it is even worse because the protagonists' adventures are set exclusively on a backwater planet. In this book, there is not a single mention of Padme, but in the movie Anakin says he has thought about her every day for the last ten years! While incorporating the Secessionist Movement into the basic plot of the novel, it really did nothing to enhance Star Wars II like Cloak of Deception did for Star Wars I.

In the movies, Jedi are portrayed as being able to sense danger right before it happens. One flat-out contradiction in this book is that the Jedi fall for the old smell-the-perfume-with-paralyzing-effects trick that I saw coming a parsec away without the powers of two Jedi Masters and their padawans. Other than that, I can consider this novel to be a part of continuity, just not a very exciting part.

And the movies did have the arena creatures, mynocks, the space slug and the rancor, but this book had countless encounters with wildlife which got old quick.

Instead of this book, I highly recommend the following 5-star novels that are more relevant to the film series:

Cloak of Deception (Star Wars)
Shadow Hunter (Star Wars: Darth Maul)
Labyrinth of Evil (Star Wars, Episode III Prequel Novel)
Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader (Star Wars)
Shadows of the Empire (Star Wars)

I'm not sure what to think about all of the positive reviews I've read for this newest entry into the Star Wars literary universe.

I for one have been a fan of Star Wars novels for quite some time, and I have found enjoyment in a great many of them, but "The Approaching Storm" left me feeling quite empty. While some have praised its slow, drawn out pacing, I found it to be unnecessarily tedious. Some have been excited about the more in depth look at an older Anakin. I found it overbearing in its attempt to portray the young Padawan as 'conflicted'. Some have enjoyed the introduction of Luminara Unduli. I found many of her scenes to be inconsistant portrayals of the Jedi philosophy.

The so-called character development between Obi-Wan and Anakin consisted mostly of Anakin being brash while Obi-Wan gave him stern looks.

The so-called refreshing pace was less the result of methodical character development as it was a strained desire to draw out the plot of a short story into a full blown novel. The plot, 4 Jedi traveling across the plains in search of nomads with whom important negotiations must be enacted, is not necessarily a bad one. But most of the their journey is spent foiling the dasterdly plans of the standard Hutt villian, Seorgg. The true villians are in fact supposed to be a group of businesspersons and politicians, but their scenes were mostly spent being shifty-eyed and swapping standard bad-guy dialogue. All of the bad guys in "Storm" are pretty pedestrian when contrasted against the far more cunning and dymanic villians of post-ROTJ novels, such as Borsk Fey'lya or the Yuuzhan Vong.

The inconsistant depiction of the Jedi is also a pretty glaring flaw. Consider Luminara Unduli. While there are many attempts to portray her as a thoughtful and serious Jedi Master, she has many scenes which contradict how one might expect a Jedi to act. When she meets two different species native to the same world, she seems oblivious to the prejudice they feel for one another. Are Jedi so naive that they do not understand prejudice? In another scene, she becomes confused when a tribe of Ansionians do not throw her a going-away party, when earlier in the book, she discusses how Jedi do not believe in any kind of extravagances. And in what may have been the most jarring scene in the novel, Jedi Luminara begins an important negotiation (in fact, the crux of her mission) by using her Jedi powers to pour several glasses of water on an antagonistic ambassador. Foster's Jedi are true diplomats.

Throw in overly-expository dialogue, contrived plot twists, and a cartoon like supporting cast (Tooqui ranks right up there with Jar Jar in the field of needless inclusion of comic relief) and what you end up with is a dull and quite unsubtle attempt on Alan Dean Foster's part to create a serious, character driven Star Wars book.

This one is for completionists only.

One of the worst things Star Wars fans have to face while new Episodes are in the works is the three-year wait between movies...I mean, Episodes. Most of us then turn to the myriads of Star Wars discussion groups and analyze the existing five movies (sometimes going off into bizarre tangents such as the "is Palpatine really Darth Sidious or isn't he?") and, like fortune tellers reading tea leaves, try to divine the particulars of the next Episode.

Another thing we Star Wars fans do while we wait for new Episodes is wondering what happens to the characters between Episodes, especially when the span of time (10 years between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones...and four between Episodes II and III, for instance)is long. Or maybe we hear a line in an existing film about something that happened prior to the current movie and we want to know more.

This is where the Expanded Universe novels are at their best, when they address events mentioned but not seen in the film series. Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter and Cloak of Deception, both Episode I prequels, fill in some of the blanks dealing with the rise of Palpatine in the Senate and explain somewhat better the blockade of Naboo. Greg Bear's Rogue Planet also showed a glimpse of 12-year-old Anakin Skywalker's relationship to Obi-Wan Kenobi and his life as a Padawan learner.

Of all the prequels to the Prequels, though, Alan Dean Foster's The Approaching Storm works best as an appetizer to Episode II. While it is a novel that has characters created by Foster alone, it also teems with major and minor characters who appeared in Episode II. The plot revolves around a border dispute on the planet Ansion, a minor planet by itself but bound by a series of treaties to other systems. In the shadows lurk the separatists led by Count Dooku, who makes a brief literary cameo.

Although the hardcover of this novel was released 4 months before the premiere of Episode II, I only read the paperback version in December of 2002, so I wasn't bugged by the spoilers or by the constraints imposed by Lucasfilm so fans would not find out too much about the plot of Episode II far, far in advance.

Because Foster wrote the novelization to Star Wars: A New Hope, he captures the voices and personalities of the movies well. He also is wonderful at creating his own characters, even if they are characters who will never be seen on film. The Approaching Storm is therefore a fun and exciting novel that makes the two-year wait for the conclusion of the Prequel Trilogy more bearable.